


Black Bones

by loveinkwell



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Angst and Porn, Bisexual Sirius Black, Black Family Drama (Harry Potter), Black Family-centric (Harry Potter), Blackcest (Harry Potter), Cousin Incest, Cunning Sirius Black, Dysfunctional Family, F/M, Family Drama, Family Dynamics, Family Issues, Family Secrets, Grey Sirius Black, Mild Smut, Pureblood Culture (Harry Potter), Pureblood Society (Harry Potter), Purebloods (Harry Potter), Sad Sirius Black, Sirius Black Fest 2020, Sirius Black Needs a Hug, The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-06
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:09:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27167716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveinkwell/pseuds/loveinkwell
Summary: Sirius considers what it means to belong to a family.Meanwhile, Narcissa will stop at nothing to hold hers together.
Relationships: Lucius Malfoy/Narcissa Black Malfoy (mentioned), Sirius Black/Mary Macdonald (mentioned), Sirius Black/Narcissa Black Malfoy, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin (mentioned)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 27
Collections: Same Bones Universe, Sirius Black Fest 2020





	Black Bones

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Sirius Black Fest 2020, prompt 45: "But maybe it's the worst in me, that's bringing out the worst in you." 
> 
> Lightly inspired by the song "Wicked Games" by The Weeknd, my second-favorite Starboy after Sirius :)
> 
> Thanks to aurora3evans and be11atrixthestrange on FF.net for beta reading!

It was nearly midnight, and Sirius was tossing and turning in the small guest bedroom at the Potter house, which he now finally called his own.

He wasn’t sure what was keeping him from sleep. Maybe it was the stifling summer heat. Maybe it was the stream of nasty letters from his parents demanding his return to Grimmauld Place—a constant flow of owls that had, in the past few weeks, reduced to a dribble, then a trickle, and then finally, a stony silence. Maybe it was the disastrous memory of his last encounter with Regulus, in which Sirius had unthinkingly turned his wand against his own brother. Now that he’d done that, there was no turning back. Going home would not only give his father license to beat him half to death, but it would show his family that he was weak, that his threats were empty, and that he’d never truly build up the courage to leave. No, this time, Sirius couldn’t return. He’d wait out the summer with the Potters, turn seventeen quietly, and never look back.

Suddenly, a loud crack cut through the stagnant air and a figure appeared by his bedside. Sirius rolled onto his elbow, reaching for his wand on the bedside table, but it was too late. In a fraction of a second, he found himself demobilized and silenced, his yells cut off inside his throat. Two cold, thin hands closed around his upper arms, lugging his stiff body off of the bed. He felt himself falling, pitching forward, but before he could hit the ground, he was seized by the back of his t-shirt and Side-Along Apparated away, his body squeezed through a narrow tunnel of air, dragged along like a sack of potatoes.

It wasn’t until he fell roughly onto a plush green carpet that his captor released him from the body-bind, and he could raise his head to see who had taken him.

He found himself glaring up into the pale face of Narcissa Malfoy. Despite the late hour, she was still in her day clothes, a white blouse and a smart green and gold skirt, but her blonde hair was disheveled, and she was panting with the effort of having carried Sirius’s entire weight.

Sirius scrambled to his feet, rubbing a nasty bump on his elbow where he had hit the ground. “Don’t you know it’s rude to Apparate into someone’s house in the middle of the night?” he snarled. “Let me guess—my parents sent you to bring back their heir.”

Narcissa ignored him, focusing instead on smoothing down her mussed strands and adjusting the skewed waistband of her skirt. Sirius looked around, taking in the low glow of the lamps, the grandfather clock, the black leather couches. They weren’t at Grimmauld Place, but the drawing room at Malfoy Manor, and Orion and Walburga were nowhere to be seen. He and his cousin were alone.

Sirius grimaced. “Don’t tell me it’s dear Lucius who wants to see me in the middle of the night.”

He couldn’t think of what Narcissa would want with him otherwise. They had barely spoken a word to each other since Sirius’s early days at Hogwarts. When she’d been tasked with keeping an eye on him, he had made it a sport to tease and humiliate her in the corridors. Last summer, she’d insisted that Sirius attend her wedding along with the rest of the Black family, but that was simply to keep up appearances. She didn’t care that Sirius spent most of his summers shut inside his bedroom, hoping not to draw his father’s ire. She didn’t care that, at the wedding, not a single person spoke to Sirius aside from Uncle Alphard. She didn’t care that her own father, Uncle Cygnus, had a cruel streak that was even worse than Orion’s, and had, over the years, shared many tips with Orion about how to keep his wayward son in line. True to her name, Narcissa Malfoy cared about nothing but her own image—and so Sirius harbored no delusions that she cared about him.

“Lucius is away on business,” she said stiffly. “This is a Black family matter.” At Sirius’s mutinous expression, she added, “And no, your parents didn’t send me. As far as they’re concerned, you’re no longer their heir. You’ve been blasted off the tapestry, you know. Aunt Walburga cried for days.”

“Good,” Sirius said through gritted teeth. He refused to give the matter any real thought, to allow himself even a twinge of pain. He had known it was a possibility, after all. He had known this was the end. “So, what do you want, then?”

Narcissa put her hands on her hips. “It’s time you and I had a talk, Sirius. You may not get along with your parents, but you’re still one of us.” She fixed him with a steely gaze, her blue-grey eyes glinting like chips of arctic ice in the dim light. “The Black name used to mean something, to our parents, to our grandparents. But now the tapestry of the House of Black is literally on fire, and someone has to hold this family together.”

Sirius rolled his eyes. This was typical Narcissa nonsense. “Well, what about Andromeda, then? Why aren’t you going after _her_? I mean, I just love Muggleborns,” he joked. “But she married one.”

Nobody in the family had spoken Andromeda’s name aloud in years, and Sirius knew the reaction it would get. Sure enough, Narcissa flinched and her face contorted in sudden agony. She shoved Sirius in the chest with surprising strength, sending him stumbling backwards onto the couch. “Don’t you dare joke about her!” she hissed. “You don’t think I tried? She was my own sister! I did everything I could!”

Sirius felt a grin tugging at his lips. After all these years, it seemed that he still loved to rile her up. It was a rare treat to see prim, proper Narcissa so flustered, and Sirius took grim satisfaction in it. He loved knowing he could make the angel of the House of Black feel just as distressed as he’d ever felt at the hands of family. He could grab the knife that pierced him and twist it right back.

For that was the thing about family, and Sirius knew it well. Belonging to a family meant giving away a map of your pain points. No matter how many layers of protection you developed, someone knew just where to burrow deep and find the soft flesh beneath.

His grin seemed only to make Narcissa angrier. “I regret it every day, you know,” she snapped. “It’s the biggest failure of my life, that I couldn’t save her. But I’m not going to let you go in the same direction. I hear you’re up to your earlobes in mud at Hogwarts already, just like she was.”

Sirius felt his grin slip away. “Oh, I see. Regulus came to see you, then, did he? Came to tattle on his big brother one last time?”

He felt a horrible lurch in his stomach at the thought of what had occurred between them at Hogwarts only a few weeks before. Regulus had cornered him in one of the covered walkways that connected the castle courtyards, in yet another misguided effort to convince him to come home and make amends.

_“Oh, you think you’re so wise, don’t you, Reggy,” Sirius said lightly, reaching out and rumpling his brother’s hair. “Now, if you don’t have anything else to lecture me about, bugger off, will you? I’ve got things to do.”_

_“Don’t give me that load of bollocks,” Regulus shot back. “What could you possibly have to do that’s more important than one real conversation with your own sodding brother? Can’t wait to run off and shag that Mudblood Macdonald, is that it?”_

_It was the first time Sirius had ever heard that hideous word fall from his brother’s lips. He hadn’t thought Regulus was capable of it. He felt a wave of fury engulf him then, and he staggered back a step, scared. He’d felt irritated with Regulus before, yes. Hurt by him, definitely. Pangs of regret that he swallowed away quickly, sure. But now, plunging his hand into his robe pocket so violently that he nearly ripped the fabric and snapped his wand as he drew it, Sirius found that he really, truly wanted to hurt him._

_His wand lashed out before he could think. An explosion sounded, and Regulus fell to his knees in the covered walkway._

_“You think you can use that word in front of me, just like that?” Sirius hissed. He looked imperiously down his nose at where his brother knelt at his feet, clutching his stomach and retching. Regulus gave a few dry heaves, and then slimy black slugs began to pour from his mouth as he braced himself helplessly on the flagstones with his hands. “What’s happened to you, Reggy? Do such nasty things always flow so easily out of your mouth?”_

_“But—but it’s true—isn’t it,” Regulus panted, raising his head to glare defiantly up at Sirius. Slugs dribbled intermittently from the corners of his lips. “You let—a Mudblood—defile you—”_

_“Oh, sure, yeah. Me and my dirty knob are old news,” Sirius said with an impatient wave of his hand. He grinned wolfishly down at his brother. “Sorry to be the one to tell you this, but it’s been places you can’t even imagine. Why—does that bother you? Does that just get right under your clean, pure skin?”_

_Regulus tried to respond, but he only retched again, sending a fresh glob of slugs tumbling out onto the flagstones._

_Sirius laughed cruelly. “Oh, Reggy, you can save yourself the trouble. I know, I know – I disgust you. I’m contaminated, soiled. But no amount of calling anyone Mudblood will change that.” He continued to laugh, if only because the alternative would have been to release the sob that threatened to rip his chest apart. “You better find a way to wash out that slimy mouth of yours before you go home to Mother.”_

Narcissa crossed her arms. “It doesn’t matter where I heard it. Leave your brother out of this.”

Sirius fought the urge to roll his eyes. Regulus had always been Narcissa’s favorite. It was just like her to protect him now. “Well, it’s none of your business what I do at Hogwarts,” he retorted. “You’ll notice I don’t poke my nose into your marriage, although rumor has it that dear Lucius leaves you alone here for weeks at a time.”

Narcissa refused to take the bait this time, giving him only a bland smile. “Well, some sacrifices must be made for the sake of family,” she sniffed. “Not that you’d know anything about that. Lucius is distracted right now, but all this political unrest is bound to die down eventually, and then he’ll be back home for good.”

Sirius raised his eyebrows. “But I thought you supported the crusade for pureblood domination,” he said dryly. “Between our parents and the Malfoys, your relatives are bankrolling half the effort.”

“I support my husband,” Narcissa said shortly. She pressed her lips together into a tight line. “But this isn’t about me, Sirius. This is about you. Great-Grandmother Violetta had a method for dealing with wayward Blacks, for purifying them after they’ve been soiled and setting them back on the right path. Now that you’re nearly of age, it’s time you knew.”

Sirius sighed. He had some idea of what such a method might entail. Most people only knew that the children of the House of Black were ushered into respectable, appropriate marriages arranged nearly from birth. But few outsiders knew that the old Black ways were also full of deviance; in fact, the House of Black sustained itself on it. To remain so esteemed and proper in the public eye, the pureblood aristocracy had to find other outlets for their pleasures, ensconced in silence by gentleman’s agreements and plenty of gold. The children were not supposed to know about it, but they sensed it nonetheless. They saw their fathers stay out until dawn and come home smelling like incense, smoke, and human sweat. They recognized the faces of family friends in the cloaked figures that emerged from their mothers’ chambers and took the servants’ staircase on the way out. They noticed their brothers, sisters, and cousins come of age and begin to hide secrets in their sly smiles. But nobody batted an eye, so long as all involved were pure of blood. It was a mundane byproduct of their insular way of life, to stave off greater temptation and preserve the purity of the line. _Toujours Pur._

Narcissa sank down onto the couch next to him and took his hands into hers. “You know what I mean, don’t you, Sirius?” she prompted. “There are plenty of good purebloods out there for you. Women, men, whatever your taste. And whoever you marry, they won’t give you any trouble. You’ll be free to do what you like. No reason ever to touch another Mudblood again.”

This time, Sirius barely cringed at the word. He shook his head. If this was what she thought he wanted, she really didn’t know him at all. “You’re wasting your time,” he told her. “You think I left because I want to boff Muggleborns? It’s not about that. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Wouldn’t I, though?” she said quietly, raising her eyebrows at him. Her lips curled into a smirk. “Poor Sirius, perennially misunderstood. Feeling crushed under the weight of so many generations of tradition. Searching for some release from the ties that bind him. Why would you think I wouldn’t understand that? Don’t you think we all feel that way sometimes? You’re not special, darling.”

Sirius blinked at her. Did she really mean it? If she did, nobody in the family had ever spoken to him about it so earnestly. Nobody had really spoken to him about it at all.

“The old Black ways were made for this,” Narcissa continued. “Your parents, they’re too close to the situation to see what the problem really is. You’ve both hurt each other too much. But it’s a simple remedy, really.” She gave him an encouraging smile. “You just need a domain of your own, a place where _you’re_ in control, and then everything else will come easily. Great-Grandmother told me so herself before she died. In fourth year, when Father first promised me to Lucius. I was scared, Sirius. I felt trapped, like my whole life was being decided for me, until Great-Grandmother showed me how to take back control. She helped me see that my pleasure was mine, and mine alone.”

As the clock in the corner of the drawing room chimed softly to signal the arrival of midnight, Sirius wished desperately for his bed. If he knew what was good for him, he’d leave now. He’d leap up and race out the door before Narcissa could stop him. He’d run past the hedgerows and through the front gate, and flag down the Knight Bus and beg the driver to let him onboard.

But he didn’t. Instead, he found that he wanted Narcissa to keep talking. He wanted to imagine a world where the answer was so simple, to bask in the mythos that there was a way all could be well between him and his parents. He wasn’t a fool; he knew it was impossible. There was a silent war, a singed tapestry, and five years of bruised flesh that stood between them. But in the low, warm glow of the drawing-room lamps, Narcissa looked kind. And if she continued to smile at him so sweetly, to hold his hands and rub her thumbs so tenderly across his palms, then Sirius could allow her to spin tall tales for him. It made him feel better, if only for the moment.

Because that was another thing about family that Sirius knew well. Belonging to a family meant you could tell yourself you didn’t need them, but your bones would betray you. You could gather up the immense strength to walk away, and, even still, there would be that eternal sliver of hope that wondered what might happen if, instead, you chose to stay.

As if she had somehow learned Legilimency and could read his very thoughts, Narcissa reached up and stroked his hair back from his face. “Poor Sirius,” she whispered again, and this time, there was not a trace of irony in her voice. “It can’t be easy for you out there on your own. Come back, and I’ll take care of you. I’ll show you how nice it can be.”

Sirius didn’t realize what she meant until she lifted his hand gently to her mouth and ran the tips of his fingers across her lips. His eyes widened. “You can’t be serious,” he muttered. “…You?”

She cupped his face in her hands and ran her thumbs across his cheeks. “Who _better_ than me? We grew up together. I love you, darling. And you loved me, once upon a time. Before you were led astray.”

“I never loved you,” Sirius protested, and it was true. He thought back to his early years at Hogwarts, when he’d teased her relentlessly in front of her friends. It was hate that had driven him to torment her then, not love. He delighted in just how flustered she would get. He relished the creation of that splotchy pink flush that ruined her otherwise perfect pale complexion. He wanted to watch her squirm, to watch the undoing of that genteel façade that adults seemed to adore, but that he found so fundamentally offensive.

Perfect little brown-nosing Narcissa—she’d always gotten under Sirius’s skin. Even when they were children, Narcissa had kept herself wrapped up so tightly, wearing her blonde hair in neat, pristine bunches that made nine-year-old Sirius yearn to reach out and yank on them roughly until she cried. And even now, it bothered him that she was barely twenty years old, and yet carried herself like some kind of matriarch. Even now, Sirius thought viciously that someone ought to reach out and muss up her pretty little pressed outfits, destroy that delicate veneer, crack open her spotless life like an egg and devour the center.

Well, not just someone—him. He wanted to reach out and do it himself.

He drew in a long, perplexed breath, and felt something stirring deep in his lower belly. _Oh, bugger._ He wanted her. Well, he’d always had a bit of an affinity for swotty types—that much he already knew. So, he really shouldn’t have been so surprised. He had always thought Narcissa was the biggest swot of them all.

He cleared his throat and swallowed thickly. “I never loved you,” he insisted again.

But, perhaps sensing weakness, she only leaned in closer. “Maybe not,” she said cheerfully, “but that won’t stop you.”

Sirius had a sneaking suspicion that she was right.

See, there was yet another thing about family that Sirius knew well. Belonging to his family meant that he was a beast of burden, that he carried on his back an invisible rucksack teeming with the psychological legacies of the House of Black. From them, he’d learned never to cower, to stand tall and face his punishment with honor. To sneer was better than to beg. To laugh was better than to cry.

And it seemed that somewhere along the way, he’d learned from them, too, that sex had nothing to do with love. Take Mary Macdonald—he boffed her because it was simple, and easy, and he liked it. But he didn’t love her. He didn’t love her like he loved James, or Peter, or Euphemia and Fleamont Potter, and especially— _especially_ —not like he loved Remus. Love was strange and delicate and frightening, something Sirius often felt he was too much of a brute to be trusted with. He lived in constant fear that he would break what little he had.

But sex was something else altogether. He liked it precisely because it was sturdy enough to bear his weight, no matter how heavy his rucksack. It was a release that helped him to exorcise the devil inside.

Maybe that was why he was so reluctant to become physical with Remus, even though they had danced around it for months now. They had spent entire nights in bed together studying each other’s every inch, petting each other cautiously under the covers. But never more. Not yet. Remus was the original swot who’d defined Sirius’s tastes for other men and women, but Sirius loved his wise, gentle friend. The idea of introducing sex into what they had was terrifying. It felt like mixing oil with ink; it would result in nothing but a mess.

But Narcissa, on the other hand… Sirius didn’t love her. He maybe even loathed her. So, he didn’t care. He could grab her narrow wrists roughly and pin her back onto the couch. He could shove her expensive embroidered skirt up around her waist and watch her pink flush spoil her porcelain complexion. He could make her call out his name until it echoed down the marble corridors of Malfoy Manor and across the manicured lawns. He could have her and chuck her and not feel an instant’s regret.

Sirius rubbed a hand over his face and let out a deep sigh. He was aroused in earnest now.

Narcissa was watching him with a knowing expression that he found infuriating. “You want to,” she whispered. She kicked off her shoes lazily, one after the other, and let one of her legs drift up onto the couch to rest across his lap. “You’re a Black, and it’s in your bones. Don’t you see it now? You belong with us.”

“I’m not a Black,” Sirius reminded her. “Not anymore.”

“You are,” Narcissa said. She seized him by the collar of his t-shirt and boldly dragged him closer. “You are, and I’ll prove it.”

They were nearly nose-to-nose now, so close that he could watch his breath stir a single tendril of blonde hair that had worked its way out of her neat chignon. He knew she was manipulating him, but he didn’t really care. Let her believe what she would. He wanted her. And if that made him no better than the rest of them, seeking refuge in what little he could control…then, so be it.

He had fought for so long against the worst parts of himself, the ones tucked deep down in his rucksack. He did his best to disguise them when he walked among his friends, nestled safely within the golden aura of their goodness. He begged for someone to free him when he conversed with the universe each night before drifting off to sleep. But it was no use. The worst parts of him stayed with him, always. He carried them with him in his bones. They were here with him right now, right here on the drawing-room couch, and Sirius saw them reflected in the way Narcissa parted her knees easily as he slid his hand up her thigh.

He rubbed his nose on the soft skin along the side of her face, then dipped down to kiss her neck. She smelled like white wine and clean silk sheets. His kisses traced, feather-light, along the line of her jaw, wandering closer and closer to her lips, but not quite committing fully. Giving them both the chance to pull away.

When he drew back to catch his breath, though, he saw that she was smirking again. “You should consider yourself lucky I didn’t leave you to Bella instead.” She stroked a hand through his long hair and tangled her fingers at the nape, drawing his face up toward hers. “Oh, darling. She would’ve eaten you alive.”

And then their lips met.

Sirius felt a familiar thrill run up his spine as she responded eagerly, first to his kiss and then to his hands. Narcissa had caught him off-guard earlier, and their conversation had him feeling off-balance, like something raw and peeled open for dissection under bright fluorescent lights. But now, he was on firmer ground. Now, he knew just what to do.

With a satisfied sigh, she let herself fall backwards into the couch, her fingers grabbing fistfuls of his t-shirt to pull him down with her. They sank deep into the plush leather cushions, and Sirius looked down at her, reveling in her quickened breath, the splotchy flush spreading across her cheeks, the single errant strand of hair that stuck now to her bottom lip. Her arctic eyes, usually so sharp and full of judgment, were hazy and unseeing. Sirius brimmed with a strange triumph then. Prim, perfect Narcissa, pinned beneath him. His for the taking. When he gripped her hip roughly and pressed himself against her, she arched up toward him and let out a mewl that reverberated like music in his ear.

Her fingers were hurriedly unbuttoning her blouse now, and Sirius yanked her bra down on one side and peppered clumsy kisses all over the pale breast. She lifted his shirt up over his head and ran her cold hands along his chest, making goosebumps ripple across the skin. He pushed her skirt up hastily, letting it wrinkle and bunch around her waist, but when he reached down to explore the flesh underneath, he was met with a prison of stodgy old pantyhose. _Typical Narcissa._

With one vicious swipe of his fingers, Sirius ripped the pantyhose away, leaving a gaping hole in the sheer fabric between her legs, enjoying her startled, exhilarated cry. In that moment, he wanted nothing more than to tear the center out of every single one of her outfits, ruin them all one by one.

“What the fuck is the matter with you?” he teased. He tossed the scraps aside and they fluttered to the ground. “Pantyhose? Don’t you know you can act like Great-Grandmother without having to dress like her, too?”

She only laughed against his lips and dug her heels into his back to draw him closer.

It took a few more minutes of fumbling around before both her knickers and his bottoms were shed onto the plush green carpet. Then he grabbed her hips and settled into her, relishing the gasp that it tore from her as he did. They rocked together, moving as one on the drawing-room couch, and she clung to him enthusiastically, her long fingernails sinking into the muscles on his shoulders and drawing prickles of pain.

It all felt a bit strange, but not nearly as strange as it should have. He liked it. He liked it much more than he liked her.

When he finally released into her, it was with a quiet shudder. Then, when he had caught his breath, he bent down to finish her off with his mouth, kneeling on the carpet beside the couch while she cried out and grabbed fistfuls of his hair.

Once her tremors had subsided, they sat for a while in silence. Narcissa remained slumped on the couch, motionless, with shreds of pantyhose sagging around her ankles, while Sirius sat on the floor staring dazedly into space, wondering how exactly they had gotten here. Finally, though, Narcissa stood up and began to rebutton her blouse, pulling her skirt back into place and smoothing out the wrinkles. And so, Sirius got to his feet as well.

He rubbed a hand through his hair, a nervous tic he’d picked up after spending too much time with James. “So, this is what Great-Grandmother thought we should do to feel better about ourselves, huh,” he joked weakly, just to fill the air between them. “I reckon it’s no wonder this family is so fucked up.”

Narcissa stared blankly at him for a moment before Sirius thought he saw a flash of affection cross her face. He marveled, then, at the extent of her devotion, the depth of her commitment to the old Black ways. Though Sirius was the outcast, the rebel who spat in the face of everything she believed in, Narcissa refused to give up on him, simply because he was a son of the House of Black. She really did love him, though it wasn’t in the way he wanted to be loved. She really did think she was saving him.

“It didn’t work, you know,” Sirius informed her. He thought he at least owed her that much. “I just felt like a shag. But I’m still the same blood traitor I always was.”

Narcissa shrugged. She didn’t seem very concerned. “Well, it doesn’t always work the first time,” she said. “But it will, eventually.”

Her lips twitched in amusement then, taking Sirius by surprise. So, perhaps she didn’t harbor any grand delusions of saving him. Perhaps it had all been for her own perverse entertainment. She was Great-Grandmother Violetta’s great-granddaughter, after all, and Lucius—well, these days, Lucius was never home.

Sirius scrubbed his eyes, feeling suddenly very tired. Out of everything Sirius knew about family, there was only one thing that mattered in the end: Belonging to a family shouldn’t mean losing track of exactly who was manipulating who. There was no doubt in his mind, now, that leaving for good was the right thing to do.

Even if he left, he’d spend his whole life trying to rid himself of the things he carried in his bones.

He laughed, if only because the alternative would have been to cry. “So, do you intend to imprison me here for the long term?” he asked Narcissa. “Because I’d really prefer to sleep in my own bed. And if I’m not back for breakfast in the morning, Fleamont and Euphemia are going to send out a search party.”

Narcissa rolled her eyes and sighed. “I suppose not. You’d be an absolute nightmare as a prisoner.” She picked up his t-shirt off the ground and tossed it at him. “If you want to go back, I’ll take you back. But Sirius?”

He looked up from pulling on his pants and met her eye. In the low, warm glow of the drawing-room lamps, she still looked kind. “Yeah?”

“My door is always open, if you change your mind.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! I'd love to hear what you thought. Kudos and comments are very appreciated (I reply to each and every comment).


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